“When the country changed from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe, we were very excited,” one man, Kizita, told me {snip}. “But we didn’t realize the ones we chased away were better and the ones we put in power would oppress us.”

“It would have been better if whites had continued to rule because the money would have continued to come,” added a neighbor, {snip}. “It was better under Rhodesia. {snip}”

Over and over, I cringed as I heard Africans wax nostalgic about a nasty, oppressive regime run by a tiny white elite. {snip}

{snip}

People I talked to were terrified for their personal safety if quoted–much more scared than in the past. {snip}

{snip} An impressive health and education system is in tatters, and life expectancy has tumbled from about 60 years in 1990 to somewhere between 36 and 44, depending on which statistics you believe.

Western countries have made the mistake of focusing their denunciations on the seizures of white farms by Mr. Mugabe’s cronies. That’s tribalism by whites; by far the greatest suffering has been endured by Zimbabwe’s blacks.

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